Page 130 of The Christmas Retreat
The weather has turned colder but still Arwen goes out to paint. She says she must while she still can.
Her appetite is capricious and I think she has lost weight, rather than gained it, despite the change in her shape. I worry about her, but except for urging her to eat – and since she took over the cooking the moment she arrived, it is all delicious – and making sure she is warmly wrapped up when she goes out, there is nothing much I can do …
What a strange Christmas this will be!
42
Christmas Past
I dwelt on the entry describing their Christmas together in Smuggler’s Cottage. It was so poignant, knowing what was to come.
Arwen, with her love of cooking, sounded so like me! And I was glad she hadsomehappy memories of Triskelion, too.
28 December 1919
Christmas was a quiet affair, cosy in our little cottage with driftwood fires burning brightly to ward off the cold.
We decorated the house with holly, ivy and mistletoe, and Arwen baked a slightly different Christmas cake, a wassail one, from a recipe given to her by the cook at Triskelion, Mrs Bradley, along with those for Welsh cakes and Jumbles, a sort of biscuit, both delicious. Luckily, she seemed to have only happy memories of time spent in the Triskelion kitchen.
I fear gluttony has become my main sin. Arwen’s appetite, however, gets ever more chancy as her pregnancy progresses.
She’s unmistakably pregnant now, and while our artist friends haven’t commented, I’m sure it has stirred up a maelstrom of local gossip.
Our gifts to each other were modest and practical. Mine from Arwen was a large blue-and-white-striped jug to hold flowers in my studio in place of the jam jar I’d been using, and mine to her a warm dressing gown.
Edwin, stirred by who knew what mixed emotions, sent down a lavish hamper from Fortnum and Mason. My aunt, who seemed barely to have registered the news that my companion was expecting a child out of wedlock, due to her being such a bluestocking that it had barely penetrated the rarified air she breathed, had sent a selection of the recently published books she considered of note, including a pamphlet on women’s suffrage, to which she’d contributed.
Arwen turned nineteen on Christmas Eve and at her suggestion we drove over to the parish church and slipped into the back for the carol service. I think in some way she derived comfort from the Nativity story, and for the first time, on the way back, we talked of the changes the coming baby will bring.
She hopes it will be a girl and never know the circumstances of her conception, but grow up surrounded by as much love as if her arrival had been a longed-for event.
I promised to play my part in this, becoming the child’s godmother, and we will be a little family of sorts, here in Smuggler’s Cottage.
Still, I’m afraid the child will suffer from the stigma of illegitimacy as she grows up. It’s such a cruel world.
2 February 1920
Arwen’s health has taken a turn for the worse since the New Year, and I fear for her. We went back to the doctor, who said the baby is small, but moves vigorously enough, and he’s unconcerned that she’s still losing blood from time to time …
When we talked to the local midwife, she too said it was not unusual, and now Arwen was in her sixth month, she was past the stage where most miscarriages happened.
I don’t think either of us was much reassured by this. Arwen has become very quiet and keeps mostly to the house or studio, although the bitter weather doesn’t entice anyone to take walks.
Still, we manage to go out for a little drive most afternoons, for I bought Edwin’s old car when he purchased a newer one.
Yesterday we visited the church of St Pol de Leon’s in Trungle, which was very interesting. It’s built on an ancient foundation, and rebuilt over the years, but you can still feel a sense of the centuries that have passed since its inception. I suggested we should go there to paint in the spring, after the baby has arrived, and Arwen smiled and said, ‘Perhaps …’
I accused her of having morbid thoughts when she insisted on making a will, naming me as the child’s guardian if anything should happen to her. She hadn’t much else to leave, but it will all come to me, so I could pass on the family mementoes to the child in due course.
This seemed to put her mind at rest, so I hope she has given up these dark thoughts.
Still, I worry that she’s so pale and languid, seemingly afraid to move with her usual vigour. I’m looking after her asbest I can, for she is the centre of my world and I don’t feel I could go on without her.
And now I am the one having morbid thoughts!
And then came the most heart-wrenching entry of them all, which made me weep even more than what had gone before:
30 March 1920
